Editor Des and the Wild Cherries of Blackheath

Well my guardian Pauline Conolly and I have been documenting the life of a satin bowerbird. It lives in Memorial Park, Blackheath, here in the Blue Mountains. I’ve become quite friendly with him. Sometimes I take him a blue treasure, because he collects them to impress his girlfriends.

Wow, look at that! Can you spot him in his grass bower?

Hello there young Desmond!

We have been watching the wild cherries ripening right above his bower.

A canopy of cherries

The funny thing is that he doesn’t seen to have noticed them. Pauline says it doesn’t make sense, because he and his friends eat anything remotely fruit like in our garden. Anyway, I climbed up and picked a few for him.

I’m being quite careful up here in case I fall on my head.

He wasn’t at home when I called in, so I left some in one of his blue bottle tops.

Come on Mate!

Do you know what? He just threw them away! Well since he didn’t seem to be interested, I thought I’d pick some more to take home and make cherry jam. It was a bit disappointing, because Pauline said by the time they boiled down I wouldn’t have enough to cover the bottom of a jar. Also, she said I should have asked permission to take them from the park. Oh for heaven’s sake, how ridiculous! What are they going to do…gaol me for nicking 28 cherries? (it might have been 30)

Anyway I decided to stew them up for breakfast.

They look pretty good.

A bit more water…

The result was quite satisfying I thought, although Milly said they were too sour, even with all the sugar we put in. And she wondered if they would even be edible because she’d heard the pips contained cyanide. Well I wasn’t intending to eat the bloomin pips!

Beautiful colour

Well, they’re wild alright!

They were….interesting! I feel OK though. Milly stuck to boring old Weetbix and eggs.

Hot milk or cold? Scrambled or poached?

Sometimes I think I need a girlfriend with an adventurous spirit to match my own!